RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA, April 19, 2017 – At 7,200 square miles, this Southern California county is nearly the size of New Jersey. On April 3, the county put out a “Request for Participants” in an effort to jump-start a $2 billion to $4 billion initiative building a gigabit fiber network.

The project is dubbed RIVCOConnect, and represents one of the most ambitious county-led efforts to entice the private sector to do what it hasn’t yet done: Upgrade speeds and connectivity throughout less-populated regions of this sprawling county. Continue reading

According to Bloomberg, Apple is getting involved in launching satellites that would beam down broadband Internet access. Recently, Apple poached two Google satellite executives to form a new hardware team within the company. John Fenwick led Google’s spacecraft operations and Michael Trela was head of satellite engineering. Continue reading

AT&T (NYSE:T) is trialing a point-to-point millimeter wavewireless technology designed to use in-building wiring to deliver 100 Mbps Internet service to each apartment unit. The trial covers several apartment complexes in Minneapolis, outside of the telco’s traditional 21-state wireline service area.

The trial uses millimeter wave wireless technology to send a multi-gigabit signal from a central building connected to fiber to neighboring apartment buildings, and then connects each apartment unit via in-building wiring. The apartment buildings have small radio/antenna systems placed on the properties’ rooftops, as well as a satellite dish for DirecTV service. Services are then distributed to each unit in the building via existing or new wiring in the property. After customers in the trial properties sign up for service, they can plug a WiFi router into an existing wall outlet to get Internet service. Continue reading

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Fiber is halting its rollout in 10 cities and laying off staff as its chief executive, Craig Barratt, steps down, dealing a major setback to the Internet giant’s ambitions of blanketing the nation in super-speedy Internet.

Barratt, CEO of Alphabet’s Access division who had been in charge of Google Fiber, said in a blog post that he would stay on as an adviser. Continue reading